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Possible Objectives of SRISTI
1. Support systematic Ethno-Botanical and Eco-institutional Surveys in Various developing countries through Honey Bee Network.
2. To study the institutional arrangements responsible for maintenance of Biodiversity and associated knowledge system,
3. To take up and/or support experimental research to derive herbal pesticides, veterinary medicines and other biochemical products of commercial and environmental importance for organic and other producers of Europe as well as developing countries.
4. To develop a protocol of sharing royalty and other rewards and recognition with the indigenous innovators so that the same may act as a model for other similar North South and South-South collaborations.
5. To maintain duplicate set of specimens in herbarium at donor (villages) and receiving end.
6. To ensure that entire process of research and commercialization is shares with the local providers of their knowledge in local language and in easily comprehensible manner.
7. To ensure people’s organizations, local institutions, schools and NGOs etc, to take up in situ conservation of Biodiversity through dispersed and decentralize Biodiversity gardens, gene banks documenting not just technical properties of the ecological systems but also cultural and institutional information about the same.
8. To explore the possibility of setting up an International Registration Authority/Coalition for accessing the indigenous innovations (some thing like an ISBN number) so that when the cases do go to court, this reference can be produced as an evidence on behalf of the local communities or people. And to set up a computerized data base.
Biodiversity Contest among Children and adults
Recently while traveling, I met an old student viz. Vasimalai who is coordinator of the activities of PRADAN- a NGO engaged in rural development. I discussed with him the idea of using a competitive mode of learning about people’s knowledge and the idea of biodiversity contest was born Vasimalai contacted Vivekanandan, a young activist who took leave from his job and spent two weeks organizing farmers and children in ten villages of district Madurai in the area of operation of PRADAN. Local jury was appointed including teachers, herbalists, social workers and respected elders. Announcement was made through word of mouth and through printed pamphlets. On a given day, school children and adults brought the samples of plants they could identify and described their names and uses to the jury. They were quizzed about the preferred habitat of those plants. The student who came first belonged to class fifth and could identify about 116 species along with their uses. The adult farmer who stood first could identify about 240 species. The most amazing aspect of this contest was that this child had covered half the intellectual journey by 12 years of age. The unfortunate aspect of this distinction is that the rest of the life of this boy will have to be spent on forgetting this knowledge and learning alien language and things which he may never be able to use. Society places no premium on such knowledge. When such a child goes to urban labour market, he becomes part of “unskilled” labour pool.
Workshop on “Sustainable Development of High Risk Environment”
The workshop was organised at IIM-A during March 9-11, 1992. It was attended by bankers, eminent agricultural scientists, social scientists and some representatives from voluntary organizations. It was organised through a grant from Swiss Development Corporation which has been supporting our work in this field for over a decade. Those interested in the proceedings may write us. We covered mainly five issues: political articulation from these regions i.e. what kind of questions were asked by members of parliament and state assemblies about the problem of drought; action-research approach to link banking and technology on the watershed basis in dry regions; match or mismatch between portfolios of investments by banks and the farmers; Non-farm sector and linkage with technology in tiny sector and management of research in reinfed regions and building upon people’s own knowledge system, innovations and experimentation. |
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee, 3(2):25-26, 1992 |
